Kirill Yuryevich Eskov is a Russian writer, biologist and paleontologist. Eskov graduated from the Department of Biology of Moscow State University in 1979. In 1986 he defended a dissertation for the Candidate of Biological Sciences at the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Animal Evolutionary Morphology and Ecology of the USSRAcademy of Sciences, the theme being "Spiders of Northern Siberia ". His main scientific interests as a biologist focus on the spiders of Siberia and the Russian Far East and, as a paleontologist, on the Paleozoic and Cenozoiceras. he is the Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Arthropods of the Paleontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences and vice-president of the Eurasian Arachnological Society. He has worked at the institute since 1988. he had 86 scientific publications. Eskov has discovered several new genera of spiders. Among seven discovered by him in 1988 is Kikimora palustris Eskov, 1988 It belongs to the family Linyphiidae, and is found in Russia and Finland. The name translates from Latin as "marsh Kikimora". He is also the author of the book History of the Earth and its lifeforms, intended as a cutting-edge biology textbook for high schools. As a fiction writer he has published several books, one of the most famous being The Last Ringbearer, an alternative retelling of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, as told from the point of view of Sauron's forces in light of the proverb "History is written by the victors." The book was "published to acclaim in his homeland in 1999. Translations of the book have also appeared in other European nations, but fear of the vigilant and litigious Tolkien estate has heretofore prevented its publication in English." In late 2010, however, an English translation approved by Eskov was posted on LiveJournal, and made available under non-commercial license. Laura Miller characterised The Last Ringbearer as "a written adventure yarn that offers a gloss on what some critics have described as the morality of Tolkien's masterpiece." Other books by Eskov include The Gospel of Afranius, a dramatic portrayal of Jesus. In the novel he attempts to construct a demythologised account of the events of the Gospels.
